Palladyne IQ emerges as only robotics finalist in NCMS contest

Palladyne AI Corp, a developer of artificial intelligence software for robotic platforms in the defense and commercial sectors, today announced that its Palladyne™ IQ AI software platform (IQ) has been named the sole finalist from the robotics and automation category for the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences’ (NCMS) 2025 CTMA Technology Competition. Palladyne IQ is an autonomy software platform that uses AI and ML technologies to provide human-like reasoning capabilities for industrial robots and collaborative robots (cobots), making robots smarter and better equipped to handle jobs that have historically been too complex to automate. Palladyne IQ is designed to enable low-/no-code training for robotic systems: robust training and ML happen on the edge, which supports faster deployment without costly programming resources needed by traditional automated systems. Its edge computing capabilities facilitate autonomous decision-making without needing a connection to the cloud, making Palladyne IQ ideal for deployed and remote operations where network access may be limited.

NCMS’s flagship program, the Commercial Technologies for Maintenance Activities (CTMA) sponsors the annual CTMA Technology Competition to support the National Defence Strategy by highlighting transformative maintenance and sustainment capabilities. It provides an opportunity for academic, commercial, and government teams to showcase new and innovative ways of making maintenance and sustainment operations more agile, effective, efficient, and affordable. This year, NCMS teamed up with Fleet Readiness Centre Southeast (FRC-SE) to seek capabilities in five focus areas: aircraft data integration, laser cutting on aluminium, robotics and automation, surface preparation and corrosion control, and expeditionary repair of aircraft structural components. The finalists were selected by Department of Defence maintenance leaders from a highly competitive field of entries.